1. They don't ask how, they ask how many. I believe George Halas might have first said that, in the Canton Hupmobile showroom where the NFL was born.

Still, it is undeniable that the Browns have had good fortune in scheduling. In their recent burst of adequacy, the Browns played Pittsburgh without Ben Roethlisberger, in between top-of-the-division games against the Baltimore Ravens; played the 3-and-10 Oakland Raiders; and played the 2-and-11 Chiefs after the Jovan Belcher tragedy. They will play Washington with a hampered (at best) Robert Griffin III.

2. Helping even more was that the Chiefs were missing for most of the game their best wide receiver, Dwayne Bowe, and their best running back, Jamaal Charles. The latter was slowed by a rib injury before the Browns' defense impeded him all that much.

You can even go back and note that the Browns lost close to Dallas after the Cowboys played Philadelphia and before the short week for the Thanksgiving game; they lost close at Baltimore after the Ravens were coming off a big win over the Patriots on a short week on a Thursday night game.

I'm not discounting the idea that, as Trent Richardson said, "We're putting something together here and it's going to be beautiful." Just pointing out that the young Rembrandts are working enviable studio hours.

3. There are actual reportersout there, as well as regular fans, who wonder if Pat Shurmur feels "vindicated" after such a winning streak. Didn't we go through this with Eric Mangini, against teams, other than the Steelers, that were playing out the string? I was fooled then. I'm not going to be delusional again.

5. You tell me: What's the deal with Trent Richardson? The 10 touchdowns (one, his most spectacular, was on a pass) are impressive. The TV guys likened him to Marcus Allen when it came to having a nose for the end zone. Allen is sixth on the all-time list with 145 TDs. I'd say a better comparison is Emmitt Smith, the Cowboys' back who attended the same high school as Richardson (Escambia in Pensacola, Fla.) and ranks second with 175 six-pointers to Jerry Rice.

Still, running backs judge themselves on yardage more than anything. Richardson's total of 869 yards on 247 rushes (a mediocre 3.5-yard average) is not consistent with expectations for the third player and first running back taken in the draft. For the record, former dog (and Dawg) Peyton Hillis (64 carries, 204 yards, 3.2 average) is gaining just under 11 inches less per rush.

Since it doesn't seem to be a matter of effort, lateral explosiveness or power, is it that the offensive line blocks so often for Brandon Weeden in the West Coast offense that their run-blocking skills have atrophied? Or what?

6. There are a lot of knocks on Weeden, including that he gets far two many balls batted down (two more Sunday) to be 6-foot-5, that he holds the ball too long, that he locks in on receivers and maybe that he was once affiliated with the New York Yankees.

Thirteen TDs to 15 picks isn't dazzling, either. But 3,037 yards through 13 games is nothing to sneeze at. It projects to 3,738 yards, within hailing distance of Bernie Kosar's career-best (3,854 in 1986) and even closer to Derek Anderson's 2007 season (3,787), in which he might have signed a contract in blood with Beelzebub.

7. My guess is that the big arm, which beguiles so many coaches, will work its magic again and that Weeden will get a second season. Maybe he's another Vinny Testaverde, always a tease, never quite top-shelf, but close enough that a string of coaches will think they could tame the ego that comes with the arm.

8. Biggest reason for optimism is the play of the front four. Pressure on the quarterback is how you win in this league. And, of course, Joe Haden at cornerback just enables so much stuff on defense by playing such suffocating coverage.

9. Buster Skrine has had a lot of brickbats thrown his way, but when he rode the KC gunner into the end zone, past Travis Benjamin, he made the team-record 93-yard punt return possible.

Benjamin, maybe the fastest man in the NFL (and he's on the short list if he's not), broke Eric Metcalf's record by a yard. Metcalf was one of my all-time favorite Browns, along with Clay Matthews. Eric was a great multiple-threat man, like his father Terry. But he couldn't fly like Benjamin.

10. Is it just me, or was all that playbook creativity a way of playing a trick on former Browns offensive coordinator Brian Daboll? The gadgets included a switch of punt return jobs by Josh Cribbs and Benjamin on the TD return, a double-reverse to Benjamin and two wildcat runs by Cribbs. Daboll, a renowned trickster, now calls the KC plays.

11. That was Cribbs blocking far downfield on the TD return, by the way.

12. As for Dustin Colquitt, the punter, who kicked one ball out of bounds at the Browns' 3, he apparently thought the "coffin corner" was where his catafalque would rest if he tried to fight through Cribbs to tackle Benjamin. It was the biggest "bail out" since the one to the automobile industry.

13. The Chiefs ran out the clock at the end of the first half, rather than try a Hail Mary. I'm serious when I wonder if Quinn, on a play beginning at the Chiefs' 46, could even have gotten it there.

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